


a hammer is not a hammer when it is sleeping

by electrumqueen



Series: all thinking is comparison [1]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 10:16:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6234724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrumqueen/pseuds/electrumqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know,” Aaron says, sleepy-eyed, careful. “There are non traditional alphas.”<br/>“I’m a traditional omega,” Robert says. End of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a hammer is not a hammer when it is sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> title from "[logic](http://thediagram.com/15_1/siken.html)" by richard siken. content includes: past heat-induced non-con; robert/chrissie and robert/katie; canon-typical themes (self harm, murder, etc); unreliable narrator. details in endnotes.
> 
> thanks to j for holding my hand & letting me ramble abt this accidental worldbuild for e v e r, and also reading the thing over when it was done!!!! you're the greatest, all the gold stars for you.

 

 

 

-

 

Every omega experiments. If anyone’s told you they haven’t, they’re lying.

Robert is happy with Chrissie. He loves her. He loves when she holds him down. He loves the weight of Chrissie on him and the way she bites into his throat and leaves marks. He likes it when she calls him _mine_.

Sure, he’s been through some phases. Everybody has.

You experiment, and then you settle down.

He’s happy, here, with her. She’s a little more traditional than he is but he’s learning to work with it. He’s even started to dream about the collar round his throat. It used to make him short of breath but it doesn’t, anymore.

If only Jack Sugden could see him now.

 

-

 

Fucking _Emmerdale._ Everyone knows him, here. Everyone remembers: little Robert Sugden, the omega who wouldn’t. The omega who left a trail of smoke and wrecked car parts and Max King’s body in his wake, all because he wouldn’t do as he was fucking told. Petulant, rude, Robert Sugden, who didn’t know his place. Somebody ought to teach him a lesson, but nobody ever did.

Robert doesn’t want to live here, but Chrissie says, _Robert,_ and puts some steel into it, and so he bows his head and acquiesces.

 

There’s an alpha. A boy with dark eyes, who steals a car and does Robert a favour. The first time Robert smells him it’s - cigarette smoke, engine grease, and weirdly that sharp burst of ozone after the rain’s ended. It makes Robert want to get closer, to figure out what makes him tick.

Not very omega of him.

But this alpha - this alpha lights up when he’s pushed. Lights up and yields, automatic, and it’s something Robert’s spent his life trying to figure out how to do. He’s almost jealous.

Almost.

 

Robert kisses Aaron and Aaron lets him. Aaron lets Robert push him backwards and lick into his mouth and the rush of it is so much Robert can't even breathe, for wanting it. Aaron’s brought his hands up but not to push Robert around, just to hold tight to Robert’s shirt, just to hold on.

God, Robert wants-

Robert is supposed to have a collar round his neck. He can’t have this. He can’t. He freezes.

Aaron takes a breath and makes this noise - this soft, sharp noise, an alpha noise. "You've done this before." His voice is doing something, an alpha something. It vibrates in Robert's chest, makes him want to bare his throat, but. That's not what he is. That's not who he is.

Robert runs.

It doesn't last long.

 

Aaron knows better, the second time. He lets Robert come to him. He doesn't do the thing with his voice and that's good, that's exactly what Robert wants.

The first time he has Aaron - in the back of that shitty fucking car, God - Aaron spreads his thighs and lets Robert finger him, lets Robert fit his cock inside him. Tosses his head back, silent, but Robert can’t look away from his face. Surrender, that's what Aaron is, entirely, completely.

“You’re so good,” Robert says, can’t help it, the words that spill out of his mouth. “So good for me.” He likes the way he sounds. Surprisingly calm, distant, in control.

It’s amazing. It’s a high.

It’s nothing like Chrissie pushing him down, holding him tight, like a vice around him.

It’s a push and a _take_ and it’s Aaron, yielding, and Robert agrees, _it’s a one-off_ but in the back of his mind he’s already thinking when he’ll do it next.

 

“I’m a good omega,” he tells Aaron, in the barn. “I will be, after I’m married. I’ve just got to get this out of my system.”

Aaron snorts, very slightly. “Sure,” he says. His eyelashes flutter when he looks away.

“I _am,_ ” Robert says. Sharp.

Aaron folds his hands on top of his chest. “I don’t mind,” he says, quietly. “If you’re not.”

“Well it doesn’t matter,” Robert says. “Because I am.” He shakes his head and rolls over and pushes Aaron into the hay to kiss him again.

 

-

 

Chrissie is a good alpha. Everyone says so, and everyone is right. She is solicitous and kind and holds the door for him and puts her hand on the small of his back and never leaves him hanging, unsure of what she’ll do next. She's funny and smart and ferociously protective of what's hers.

He likes being what's hers. He likes smelling like her: lilies of the valley and a match that's just been struck.

 

He doesn't deserve her. Everyone says that, too.

The first time she told her father she thought Robert was cute he said, _someone's gotta keep a tight leash on that boy_ , and she smiled and said, _I wouldn't mind._

She thinks it's a cute story. She tells it often.

 

-

 

He loves taking Aaron to hotels. He loves watching Aaron light up but he also loves to call the shots - to sign their bills, to order dinner, whatever. These people don't know who they are. Robert’s not collared. You could look at them and think two betas, or Robert the alpha to Aaron’s omega.

 

With Chrissie it's impossible. Whole rooms turn to obey her. She’s the centre of everyone’s attention.

That’s all right. He loves that about her.

 

“You know,” Aaron says, sleepy-eyed, careful. “There are non traditional alphas.”

“I’m a traditional omega,” Robert says. End of.

 

He fucks Aaron against the shower tiles, water dripping down Aaron's chest. Aaron's hot and tight around him, his cock pulsing in Robert’s hand. He tilts his neck to one side and Robert bites down.

He loves leaving marks. He shouldn't. But he does. He loves knowing that there's proof: that he did this, that Aaron was, for a moment, his.

 

-

 

He loved Katie once. He did.

He loved her because she was funny, and bright, and beautiful. He loved her because she laughed at his jokes and kissed his hair and because she shone in the sunlight, like the centre of the sun. He loved the way she looked in the morning and her voice when she teased him and the sounds she made when she came. He loved that she smelled like horses.

More than that: he loved her because she was a beta and when she kissed him she didn’t expect him him to yield. When they got married she didn’t ask him to wear her collar; just a ring. And she wore one, too.

 

Beyond all of that, he loved her because she had been Andy’s, and Robert had taken her, and then she was his.

Robert loved taking things from Andy. It was just one of the many things that made him a terrible omega. He loved things when they were Andy’s. He loved things when they smelled like Andy: new cut hay, oversteeped tea, apples. He knew it did nothing to put them on a level playing field: but Andy was the alpha son Jack had always wanted, and Robert was the ill-mannered omega he couldn’t pawn off, so if Robert could hurt him - Robert would.

 

-

 

Andy, Robert wants to hurt. He looks at Andy and wants to draw blood: Andy is Jack, and disappointment, and every alpha who ever looked at Robert like he was less. Robert wants to see Andy in ruins. Not that Andy really needs much help with that.

 

He's never wanted that for Vic. His favourite alpha: his little sister with her big eyes and her sweet smile. She always looked after him and he never minded.

Now she's got this Barton lad and he kneels for her and looks happy when he does it. And Robert doesn't think -

Sometimes he wonders what it is that went wrong to make him like this. Why he can't just take a good thing, and hold it close, and keep it safe.

 

-

 

Katie dies and he mourns her. He is still in love with her, even then. Despite everything. He just - she’s supposed to be strong, she’s supposed to be stable.

She’s not supposed to fall like she does. The wall is not supposed to give out.

He wants to say this to Aaron; he is crying, just a little, and he wants to say _I wouldn’t have, ever,_ because they would have worked something out, they would have. They had before. She had kept his secrets and kept them well.

 _I loved you,_ he thinks. _I loved you and I am so, so sorry._

Katie is dead. Because he killed her.

 

He has never felt more omega than he does in this moment: with an alpha on the other end of the phone, saying, _I need yous, please come back._

Not _his_ alpha, though. That’s something.

Aaron comes back and Robert is in charge. Robert is asking, begging, pleading - omega tricks, omega eyes - but he’s the one telling Aaron what to do, and that settles down the raging fear in his chest, in his heart.

 

-

 

 _I love you_ is the biggest omega trick in the book.

 

-

 

Heat prickles under Robert’s skin. He went off suppressants when he married Chrissie; it's in the contract.

She wants all of them to go away together. Like a family. Things have been messy. Things are always messy.

Heat’s coming. Robert can feel it in the way he moves; he wants to stretch out, languid. Wants to know that people are looking at him. He’s good at masking it, though. She doesn’t know him as well as she thinks she does. Nobody knows him.

Robert says, “I think Lachlan needs you.” He touches his collar. “I’ll miss you. But I want what’s best for the family.”

She buys it. Buys him a week.

 

Lachlan doesn’t smell like anything.

It creeps Robert out.

 

-

 

_They’re gone. Come to the house._

Robert’s naked. He’s read up online: heat makes you want to tear your clothes off. All Robert’s clothes are nice. Chrissie bought them. He doesn’t want them to get ruined.

Aaron’s wearing a sweater and a backpack. His beard is going to leave marks on Robert’s skin. There is enough time that that won’t be a problem. You heal faster during heat, anyway. That’s what all the pamphlets say.

Aaron kisses him and then blinks, wide eyed, startled. His eyes are so dark.

“Robert,” he says.

Robert takes Aaron’s hand, drags it over the curve of his arse. He's wet. He knows he's wet. He's been wet all day, and aching. “Yeah,” he says. “Come on, I want this.”

Aaron swallows. “You're-”

“Keep up,” Robert says. “You're an alpha, aren't you? Think with your dick.”

“This is _heat_ , Robert,” Aaron says. Like it’s serious, like Robert doesn’t know what he’s doing. Aaron is supposed to be the person who doesn’t ask.

“Yeah, well,” Robert snaps. “You finally get to put it in me, isn't that what you want?” Aaron has never asked but it’s been a while, and sometimes when Robert wakes up with him he’s grinding at the curve of Robert’s arse, just in his sleep. Robert’s never let him.

Aaron flinches. He's getting foggy: heat. Robert’s never felt so compatible with anyone. He’s never felt so powerful with anyone. Aaron is the only one who yields like this, to the force of Robert’s will. Knowingly, gracefully, completely.

“I should leave,” Aaron says. He’s swaying towards Robert. His scent is turning metal, sharp on Robert’s tongue.

Robert kisses him again. He’s dizzy with it, how much he wants this. He needs to get _fucked_. “If you’re going to go, you should do it now.” His voice is rough. He sounds - god. He sounds like sex. “While you can.”

Aaron’s fingers are pushing at him, tracing around his entrance. The pads of them are rough and Robert’s shifting towards him, pushing down. “This is supposed to be for your alpha,” Aaron says, but he sounds dazed, liquid. Yearning.

Robert feels himself growl, low in his throat. “It's mine,” he says. “I'm my own.”

Aaron flinches. “Sorry.”

Robert wants to bite him. Wants to be claimed. He wants -

Heat pulls at his skin. He kisses Aaron, hard. Draws blood and feels it blood against his lips. He’s prickling. His skin is too tight.

He wants, he wants, he wants.

 

In the bedroom Aaron lets Robert push him down, lets Robert straddle his hips and grind against him. His pupils have dilated. He looks a mess.

Robert feels: loose, electric. Wet. He pulls at Aaron’s zip, gets it down. He’s hard already, and Robert can feel his knot at the base of him. That’s going to be inside him. That’s going to feel - he’s never wanted a knot like he wants this.

Fucking heat.

This bed is Chrissie’s bed. He can smell her on the sheets.

Aaron can, too. It makes him lift his head, makes him bite at Robert’s throat, at his collarbone. Robert’s collar is heavy on his pulse. He doesn’t have the coordination to get it off. He couldn’t take it off if he wanted, anyway. He loves her. She makes him who he’s supposed to be.

Not like Aaron. Aaron makes him what he is.

“Arms up,” Robert says, sharp. Catches Aaron’s wrists with one hand and pins him to the mattress.

Aaron lets him: barely. He’s feeling it but it’s not overtaken him yet. He’s still in control - enough to let Robert take control.

Robert drags his fingernails along Aaron’s torso. Little red lines flare up and then dissipate: bright against the scar tissue. Robert hates that. It’s not supposed to be there: Aaron’s not supposed to have anyone else’s marks.

 _Heat, heat, heat._ Makes you forget who you are, what you want. There’s a reason Robert takes pills.

“Please,” Aaron says. The line of his jaw is brittle; Robert bends to kiss it.

“You smell so fucking good,” Robert says. “Jesus, Aaron.”

Aaron offers him -  a smile, perfect, this little turn up at the edge of his mouth - and Robert has to kiss him, has to lick his way into Aaron's mouth and tangle his hand in the gel of Aaron's hair - god, he hates it, the idea of anything on Aaron. He just wants Aaron, only Aaron, the scent of him unalloyed and perfect.

Aaron groans into him. _I love you_ says the curve of his bare throat, _I need you_ says his scent, sharp and bright and sour with desperation.

“Want you,” Robert says, and curls his palm around the shape of Aaron's cock, the heaviness of it. His skin is prickling; he aches, empty inside.

“Have me,” Aaron says, and his eyes are glassy with heat but that’s not what this is; the sharpness of it hits Robert in the gut, hits him so hard he reels back onto his heels and Aaron’s blinking at him, confused, so Robert shakes his head and gets Aaron’s cock inside him and oh, god, this is what it’s supposed to feel like: this is what it is. This is what he’s been missing, all those times he’s fucked Aaron; god, he’s never felt anything like this.

Heat slams into Robert, heavy on his limbs, on his bones: he’s so fucking full, fuck, and it’s Aaron - Aaron who is biting his lip, Aaron whose eyes are wide, Aaron who is staring at him like he’s -

He settles his palms on Aaron’s chest - Aaron’s heart beating so fast, so loud, he can feel it echoed in his own veins - and lifts his hips, up and down and up again, the drag of Aaron’s dick hot and full, and he is thinking _yes, yes, yes._

 

-

 

They lie together, knotted. Robert thought he would hate it but he doesn’t. He puts his arms around Aaron and Aaron tucks his face into Robert’s neck and they just breathe together, gently, until the knot goes down.

 

They fuck again. And again. Robert’s thighs are screaming but in a distant sort of way.

Heat is a cruel mistress, but Robert isn’t complaining.

He covers Aaron with his whole body, envelops him. He thinks it is good that there is no bite-mark at the base of Aaron’s throat because if there was - if someone had claimed him, ever, and left him like this - Robert would have to find them and rip them apart. It is not a very omega thing nor a very Robert thing but he would do it.

He leaves kisses at the base of Aaron’s throat. There is enough of him left in his mind to know: do not bite. But, god. He wants.

 

-

 

“You have to get me the morning after.”

“What?”

“I can't exactly do it myself. This village talks, you know that. I’m married. I’ve got a collar. We ought to be trying.”

“But I'm just a slapper, is that it?”

“You could be fucking anyone. Everyone knows alphas’ll fuck anything.”

“Must explain this.”

 

But Aaron gets up, pulls on a shirt and offers Robert a little smile as he watches. The wreck of him: his shoulders, his hair. He looks like a hurricane hit him and Robert loves it.

“Hey,” Robert says, catches his shoulder and both of them hiss at the spark of it, the ache. They’re sore but Robert has to kiss him again, just to make sure. “Don’t run, yeah? Take the car.”

Aaron rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

 

When he comes back, Robert kisses him, and settles on top of him. “Missed you.”

“Missed my knot, more like,” Aaron grumbles, but he’s smiling, and when Robert tugs at him he lets himself be kissed again.

 

-

 

“Is it usually like this?” Aaron asks. Sleepy, sated, with his knot in Robert and their legs entwined. “I’ve never - only dated betas. An alpha, once.”

Robert shrugs. Doesn’t think about the fact that that alpha was his little sister. It’s a small village. “I’ve only had it once.”

Aaron blinks at him. “Is that-”

“Got my first one when I was fifteen,” Robert says. “Andy was the only alpha nearby. Dad was out. Andy’s adopted. No automatic revulsion. The - heat haze is worst when you’re young.”

 

He doesn’t remember much of it. He remembers that he’d been irritable for days, sniping at Andy, and Andy had sniped back. They’d fought in the barn, Andy making a crack about Robert being the worst omega, how no alpha would ever want an ill behaved little slag like him. Robert had launched himself at Andy and Andy pinned him to the ground.

The air changed and Andy said, “ _what the fuck did you do, Rob_ -” and he remembers that, burned into his memory, _how have you fucked things up this time, Robert_ \- and then Andy growled, low in his throat, and dipped his head, and bit hard at Robert’s collarbone. He still has the scar.

Andy knotted him three times before they came to their senses, swimming up and out. Not a lot, but enough for Andy to drive them to the hospital, for Robert to stagger in and say, _I need suppressant._

He remembers the look the nurse had: an omega, with red hair and green eyes. She’d put her hand on his hair and said, _I’m so sorry,_ and shot him right up until his whole body went cool and he passed out.

He woke up three days later. He hasn’t been off suppressants since then. Not until now.

 

“Oh,” Aaron says.

Robert traces his fingers across a line of scar tissue on Aaron’s abdomen. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “This has been fun.”

Aaron tangles his hand in Robert’s and leans in, very slightly. This is what he does when he wants to be kissed; Robert indulges him. “I like this,” Aaron says. “I like us.”

Robert kisses him again, for the way he melts into it; easy, perfect. “I know,” he says, and he’s tight around Aaron; he feels full and whole and it’s so, so right. “It’s good for me, too.”

 

-

 

They were in the barn and Aaron said, “You know, it fucked me up. Being an alpha. I wasn't good at it. I punched things. People. I ran drugs.”

“Proper little scally, were you,” Robert said, idly running his fingers along the line of Aaron's dick; Aaron made these little wounded sounds when Robert twisted his thumb along the head, reluctant, like he couldn’t help them, and ducked his head and flushed in a way that made Robert want to kiss him. But he could picture it: Aaron, sixteen, angry. Being told he ought to be at the top of the heap - like Cain, maybe - but just wanting to be held. It made him angry. It made him want to fight someone, hurt them for hurting Aaron.

“Shut up,” Aaron said, circling his hips slowly into Robert's hand. “I'm just saying, aren't I. I thought, you're gonna meet some omega girl, she's gonna kneel for you, you'll put a collar on her, all of that.”

Robert winced. He and Chrissie had picked out his collar. It was gold and fit snugly around his throat and she would wear the key, matching, on a chain around her neck. It made him feel expensive and wanted and trapped. “D’you have a point or are you just reminiscing?”

Aaron sighed. “It was awful,” he said. “Trying to make myself want things I didn't.”

“It would be,” Robert said. “I'm sorry you went through that.” He tightened his hand around Aaron's dick and kissed him, and Aaron shut up.

 

-

 

Chas is a beta but she's the most dynamic beta he's ever met: if he didn’t know better he’d assume she was an alpha, the way she runs a room.

But she’s not: she doesn’t smell like anything, just her soap and her laundry powder, and faintly of beer. She looks at him with sharp eyes and he knows she can’t smell the heat. It’s mostly under his skin now, anyway. Mostly out of his system.

Just a day or so left, and then recovery. He’s going to fuck Aaron over every piece of furniture he can find.

 

“Anyone ever tell you,” she says. “You’re mouthy, for an omega.”

Robert sips his pint. The bitterness of it explodes across his tongue: everything feels like more when you’re in heat. “Yeah,” he says. “Katie used to. All the time.”

“That why you ruined her life, then?” Sharp, bitter. He deserves it.

“No,” he says. “That’s why I loved her.”

 

He catches Aaron’s eyes: like a gesture, like, _soon._

Aaron smiles, very slightly, like, _yes, I understand._

 

-

 

Aaron took him to a gay bar, once. He was angry about Andy, about Katie, about the rings, about everything. He was angry that he felt like himself with Aaron. He was angry that Chrissie thought the best way to handle this was to make Robert kneel, so that she could pet his hair. It made him unspeakably angry: not because she was doing it, but because it didn’t work.

Aaron said, “People here are normal, too.”

Robert looked around: it smelled like omegas, and alphas. But nobody was kneeling, nobody was being hand-fed. They were just having pints, like normal people. “You don’t know anything about me,” he said.

 

Robert was so fucking angry. So fucking angry. It filled him all the way through. He couldn’t take it out on Chrissie, but he could - he could, here.

It was so satisfying to make Aaron hurt. Up until it wasn’t.

 

Like it was satisfying to make Andy bleed. Up until it didn’t change anything: up until no matter what it would always be Robert and Andy in that fucking barn, for the rest of both their lives.

Wouldn’t stop him trying, though.

 

-

 

“I can be this, too,” Aaron says. “If that’s what you want.” His hands are on Robert’s wrists, pushing him down.

Robert’s traitor body picks up. His blood is humming. “Yeah?” he asks. He tips his head forward, covering his neck.

Aaron settles his thighs either side of Robert’s. His cock rubs against Robert’s entrance, hot and huge. He tangles one hand in Robert’s hair and pulls his head back; Robert tries to cover the startled, sharp intake of breath, but is unsuccessful. “Yeah,” Aaron says. His voice is low with heat, a growl more than anything else. “Traditional alpha.”

Robert’s throat has never felt more bare. Even with Chrissie’s collar circling it: he is so vulnerable under the force of Aaron. He never thought he would be, never thought this little alpha with his little eyes and his small smile would be able to do this. Reduce him like this to blood and bone and want and need.

Aaron kisses him and slides into him and it’s too much, all of it, overwhelming, but Robert doesn’t want anything else. He wants this, he wants Aaron, compact and wiry and surprisingly powerful; Aaron inside of him, Aaron on top of him, Aaron holding him down, Aaron _keeping him._

“Aaron,” he says, rolling into it, the force of him, the way his dick is sending sparks shooting up Robert’s spine, all through him. It’s easy, nothing in the world’s ever been easier, but that’s so fucked up, he thinks, because nothing’s worth more than this.

“Robert,” Aaron says, kissing him, and the weight of him’s like an anchor, not like a millstone: it’s keeping him safe, it’s keeping him whole. Robert has always been a tornado, a thundercloud, a storm in skin but Aaron has seen it, all of him, and can hold him with his hands and pin him here and love him, regardless.

Robert surges up to kiss him and Aaron laughs, teeth on his lower lip, catches Robert at the nape of the neck and holds him still to kiss him, hard, in time with the steady-hot shiver of his dick pressing in and in and in. And then he pauses, pulls Robert off, and just _looks_ at him: fever-bright, longing.

Robert feels like he could break apart. He is lost, all of him: blood and bone and thought all swept away for this steady, implacable onslaught of desire. But Aaron has caught him, and Aaron is holding on. Aaron won’t let him go.

 

“Do it,” Aaron says, and his hand is tight in Robert’s hair and Robert’s mouth is pressed against Aaron’s throat and Aaron tastes like salt and sweat and _grass after rain_ and he does it, because it’s Aaron, because it’s Aaron who wants him and loves him and takes everything Robert gives him -

Robert bites down.

 

“I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you,” Robert whispers, tracing his fingers over the mark. It’s already dark. It’ll heal nicely, and it’ll stay. Heat marks always do.

Aaron sighs, but doesn’t push him away. “That’s the thing about you,” he says, stretching out. His thighs flex and Robert rolls back into them, experimentally, feeling where they’re tied together. “You want what you can’t have.”

 

Aaron pushes him down. The weight of him is - feels enormous. It feels like Robert will never move again.

 _I love you,_ Robert thinks.

Oldest omega trick in the book.

He shuts his mouth, and keeps it shut.

Heat is almost over. He’s coming back to his own head.

 

He is almost unbearably light. He reaches for Aaron, and holds on.

 

-

 

“I missed you so much,” Chrissie says, taking him into her arms. She presses the pads of her fingers to the lock at the centre of the collar. “I love you, Rob.”

He bows his head. His bones weigh too much. All of him weighs too much. “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- andy and robert have sex when they're fifteen because robert goes into heat; neither of them consent to it and it fucks up their relationship forever.


End file.
